Preserving habitats for state birds

The mix of the state's landscape -- woods, fields, wetlands, rivers, shoreline and estuaries -- has made it a hospitable place for nearly 400 species.

It also has a lot of birds -- about 850 million birds a year stop by the state, according to the 2008 State of the Bird report issued this week by the Connecticut Audubon Society.

But those numbers can be deceiving.

For as the state becomes more homogenous -- more suburban sprawl, fewer hayfields, more fragmented forests, development pushing closer to the shoreline and rivers to create more waterfront property -- the birds that need specific places to live are losing out to those that can live in a lot of different places.

"The generalists have an easy time of it," said Milan Bull, senior director of science and conservation for the Connecticut Audubon Society.

That's not to put down robins and chickadees and even rock doves -- aka pigeons. But as the report points out, maintaining a mix of diverse places for birds and many other animals to live is a complicated process.

"You can't just buy 100 acres of grassland and think you've done your job," Bull said. "Left alone, that grassland will just grow back to young forest."

That's the theme of the 2008 report: the need to manage habitat to preserve wildlife diversity and the difficulties involved. To read the full report online, go to the Connecticut Audubon Society's Web site at www.ctaudubon.org.

The report looks at six threatened species in the state: bobolinks, American oystercatchers, salt marsh sharp-tailed sparrows, blue-winged and golden-winged warblers and cerulean warblers.

In some cases, these habitats are threatened when houses and condominiums crop up along the shoreline and into the forests and fields. In the cases of the blue-winged and golden-winged warblers, the brushy thickets that used to be all over the state have grown into woods. It takes some dedication and commitment to preserve shrubland that way.

And, Bull said, conservationists are becoming increasingly aware that not everyone agrees with them. It would be nice, he said, to reduce the state's herd of white-tailed deer to promote forest growth and protect the birds that nest on the ground in the forest.

But there are lot of people who love white-tailed deer or at least are opposed to hunting them. The same love extends to mute swans and monk parakeets -- birds that really don't belong in the state to begin with.

"There are social issues involved here," Bull said. "Tell people they can't use the beach because birds are nesting on them, and you get people resenting those birds. Then you see bumper stickers that read 'Piping plovers taste just like chicken.'"

And there are global issues that Connecticut can't control. If climate change means rising sea levels, that may wipe out the nesting habitat of salt marsh sharp-tailed sparrows. Cerulean warblers spend their winters in the cloud forests of the subtropical cloud forests of South and Central America. So forests there are as important as are forests here.

The key to protecting habitat, birds and wildlife in general in the state, Bull said, will be to get everyone to sit down together and talk to one another on conservation issues -- developers, birders, land preservationists and fans of white-tailed deer. It might mean compromise, which for some people is a dirty word. But it might mean that our small state -- with lots of different habitats and lots of different wildlife -- can endure that way.

"All the stakeholders have to be involved," Bull said. "And once we preserve land, we have to make sure we put money aside to manage it."